Kurtis Fechtmeyer has started a petition to formally censure Ilhan Omar for her “repeated history of false, derogatory and hateful communications that go well beyond the bounds of acceptable discourse….” You can sign the petition at Change.org. This is Kurtis’s more extended statement in support of the petition, which he posted earlier today:
After the threat of legal action, Representative Omar has deleted a false and libelous statement from her Twitter feed related to the Covington Catholic high school students, and she has explained that it was an error due to forwarding false information. I have requested via Twitter that she make a formal written apology and post that on Twitter and other social media to clarify her full stance. Will keep you updated. Deleting the false and defamatory post is a welcome action from Representative Omar, although it does not exonerate her from the principal charge of promoting derogatory, insensitive and hateful communications, which disqualify her from holding public office.
We have witnessed all too often with Representative Omar that these hateful comments are couched in ways that are plausibly deniable but which make no doubt as to their intent. In 2012 she spoke of Israel “hypnotizing” the world with its “evil” ways. While she has acknowledged recently that this is traditional anti-Semitic trope and now that she knows this realizes the errors of her ways, this pattern has been repeated again and again. With reference to Mike Pence, she refrained “Jesus take the Wheel” and when confronted dismissed it has a harmless pop culture reference. Then, she made reference to Senator Lindsay Graham being “compromised” in some way, again an innuendo about the bachelor Senator’s sexual orientation – yet another common trope (there’s that word again) in Congressional circles.
The Covington Catholic smear left many speechless. After the sinister anti-Israel phrasing, the smug slight to Vice President Pence’s faith, the Washington wink and nod wrt/Senator Graham, the Covington Catholic tweet was a final straw for many. I immediately requested that the tweet be deleted and pleaded for her to stop, reflect, and delete the false references. I did this to save my district further embarrassment and because the hate was so palpable in the message.
But nothing happened until a threat came from of an out of town lawyer for a libel claim. She then deleted the tweet and breezily passed it off as (yet another) rookie mistake. I thought about rescinding this petition, but given Representative Omar’s repeated pattern of “oops, I did it again” the excuses have run out. I am also maintaining this petition, because her stance on Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) has been determined to be anti-Semitic by several governing bodies. Personally, I do not immediately so link BDS IF (and key IF) the person making the case has a strong record of condemning human rights violations outside of Israel by both non-state and state actors. Representative Omar has been specifically non-responsive on the question of non-state actors and limited her criticism to a narrow handful of governments, not practices. This is unacceptable as a counterweight to her BDS position without further evidence.
Finally, I want to make crystal clear that this petition has NOTHING to do with Representative Ihlan’s professed faith or the Muslim religion generally. And PLEASE keep any derogatory or anti-Muslim comments off this petition. I myself am a Unitarian Universalist by tradition and along with Baha’i faith and other unitary theologies, we are very open to the lessons and teachings of other religions. I also believe fundamentally in the ability of people to change and mature, and it is my fervent hope that Representative Omar address the hate she has expressed.
I’ve signed the petition.
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